


Homestuckery Oneshots From Across Spacetime and Canonicity

by tBrilli4ntD4rkness



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/F, F/M, Homestuck-related oneshots, M/M, Music-Inspired, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Outside the game, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Some Shipping, everything from AUs to Ancestors to canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23709577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tBrilli4ntD4rkness/pseuds/tBrilli4ntD4rkness
Summary: These are ongoing oneshots with Homestuck themes, most likely not plot-centric, and with occasional musical recommendations.Including:"The secondhand embarrassment involved in having your moirail read your pitch letters""Successfully killing off your conditionally immortal Seer and being forced to rely on a snarky broad""The mystery behind several scenes of gratuitous pale prophecy and a blatant self-insert-relationship (connection toYou, Me, and Your Moirail)"
Relationships: Gamzee Makara & Karkat Vantas, Neophyte Redglare & The Summoner, Spinneret Mindfang/Neophyte Redglare
Kudos: 4





	1. Oh My Enemy, Beautiful Enemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The (lack of) secondhand embarrassment in having your moirail read your pitch letters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Musical inspiration slash accompanying sound: Beautiful Enemy by Dar Williams.  
> Recommended video by AquilaCat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta0ZOcCAJhM

Marquise Spinner8 Mindfang regarded the peace summit summons with a critical eye. The short, informal document written in an ostentatious amaranthine ink boldly requested her attendance at a tricity council, in efforts to deal with the recent rash of violent protests spreading down the interstate corridor. It was at least improved to the previous text, a rambling two-page monstrosity with dubious spellcheck written by someone's sleep-deprived secretary. Or perhaps an overzealous prankster. Either way, the offending person had clearly been oust from their letter-writing duties.

Mindfang regarded her reflection from several poses, smacking her blue-painted lips in satisfaction. She reached for her large hat, only to find several of the large feathers askew and most certainly not how they had been laid the last time she had worn her outfit centerpiece. As she straightened the ruffled feathers, a light knock came from the open entryway.

"Marquise Mindfang, the letter to the Bureau of Legislacerative Activities has been drafted per your request, and is here for your review." Mindfang gestured for the secretary to approach, continuing to fix her hat while skimming the document as her attendant flipped pages at her pointed blinks. Her spiderlike world-class multitasking was one of her most prized skills. The letter had of course been written in Mindfang's style by whatever trolls made up the correspondence team, detailing the mundane updates necessary and leaving the Marquise free for the more important rigors of her position.

"Will there be any personalization for the end of the letter?" To the secretary's credit, this was said with a unwavering straight face and bland tone of voice. Then again, trolls were not known for their separation of interests, and tended to romance with whomever they pleased, official letters and private mail alike.

Mindfang's reflection watched the room with a glint in her eye. "Add that: As for her latest atrocious gimmick . . I send her my scorn and ridicule. That will be all." The Marquise's PAs had all been well-trained and the secretary did not so much as blink at the response, dutifully noting the addition on a pad before absconding with a bow. Traditional standards were highly favored in the Marquise's ~~court~~ office, and the most prominently featured sign of respect was the age-old bow: spine straight and head upturned, baring the neck slightly and keeping the horns from a threatening position.

Hat issues sorted and kismesis about to be devastated, Mindfang settled her favored headwear around her horns and gave the room an arachnid's smile, the grin of a predator about to eat its fill.

* * *

"--and the dam will be finished in the next perigree. Then she'll be there for the diplomatic conference, of course, with all the drudgery that entails." The troll paused to chuckle softly, and when he continued it was with an appreciative amused tinge to his voice. "And as for your latest project, she sends her scorn and ridicule."

"Don't start summarizing on me now. You've read all manner of bizarre and excruciatingly detailed insults before," Imperator Redglare remarked wryly, inspecting her well-tailored suit for creases. On the Summoner's recommendation, her outfit was white and teal tonight, a colorful but not blaring debut to the high court. Since her induction into the legislacerator organization, Redglare had made a point of ignoring the more subdued deep colors typical to court appearances. While her idiosyncrasies were regarded with a range of annoyance, respect, acceptance, and even appreciation, even the fast-rising tealblood would not insult her new superiors until at least the second night in the courtblock.

"Alas, I continue to suffer at the hands of a most villainous mistress immune to the effects of secondhand embarrassment, having her moirail read her pitch nothings from official correspondence." The bronzeblood opined melodramatically. "But no, that's all she wrote. Sniff for yourself if you want."

Redglare narrowed her eyes at her palemate, striding over to take the paper from his outstretched claws. "To be clear, you were my secretary before we ever waxed pale. One might say my black trysts enhanced your pity." The Summoner snorted. Redglare brought the pulpy package up to her face and inhaled deeply, and almost immediately sparked in outrage. "What, she can't sacrifice her precious time to coming up with vitriolic paragraphs for her wageslaves to copy in her hand? Did some idiot finally put their foot in the web long enough to demand a raise or an end to the venting of her ancient insults? Does she take this to be a mere shallow one-off, some easy relationship with a bleeding pale pumpbiscuit?"

"Or maybe she knew the simplicity would rile you more," he responded, far more amused than he had any right to be.

"The court will be given a good defense, or she will sorely regret our next meeting," Redglare grinned her signature too-sharp smile. Her vibrantly red lips contested with her teal outfit, the only mark of her favorite color.

"I'd say I pity that ambassador who keeps trying to auspisticise, but I'm already fending off the pale advances of the kitchen matron." Summoner replied, accepting back the letter with a quick one-over of Redglare's sharp nails.

"Oh yes," Redglare shook her head, letting her thick black hair fan out around her head. "Please do something about that. It's so ridiculous to watch it no longer qualifies as pathetic, and I already have enough pitch on my hands to tar several martyrs."

"Pyralspite is waiting for you by the transport buggy," Reglare's palemate secretary reminded her. Summoner closed his eyes as she rested one palm against his face, leaning down to plant a light ring of candy red at the base of one of his large horns. "Take care, my diamond."

Redglare paused in the doorway, slipping on her red shades with one hand and holding her white cane in the other. This time her grin could be called thoroughly predatory, with the way her glowing eyes backlit her shades. Summoner bared his teeth in reply - less a return threat than a pale understanding by two of the same mind - and then she was gone, off to torment the criminals and judges alike.


	2. Massacre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seeing as you successfully managed to kill off your conditionally immortal Seer in _both_ of the two ways possible . . . Well, that would leave me, wouldn't it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Musical inspiration slash accompanying sound: Massacre by Kim Petras.  
> Recommended video by Aquilacat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o351pUxQi-4
> 
> (World note: Godtier ascension through Game-related trials in the natural universe, without full SBURB play.)

"We have sustained contact with forces A through B--" "Council connection commencing in fifteen minutes--" "--my position--" "--fifth formation with Minister--" The aptly named Hive control center buzzes with background chatter as two hundred technicians communicate positions, relay course corrections, and initiate countdowns at near deafening pitch. The Terran Defense Council sits at the helm of it all, awaiting the pre-attack connection with similar leaders of the other allied forces. Seventeen worlds were a part of the Interstellar Trade and Mutual Defense Alliance, and fourteen of them are represented in this strike against the rogue Scratch-English Colonies which had started raiding and destroying trading vessels on their way to Earthhome several Terran-months prior. Today one of the two SEC main worlds would go up in ice and space dust.

A shout carried across the Hive causes a brief pocket of quiet in one section, and then a messenger is dashing up to the assembled council. "The Skaian ship is withdrawing, and connection has been lost with the Beforan fleet!" The council wears a unified expression of wary dignity, men and women scrolling their data panels to double check the information. The background buzz seems to become a little more chaotic, voices calling out on suddenly one-way frequencies. A synthesized voice calmly announces: "Call to the Terran Council from Skaian Controlship. Line 14."

One council member immediately starts to snap "The all-council meeting will begin--" on impulse, then jerks his head up and goes quiet without completing his thought. The Skaian ship - a gesture of solidarity set deeper into space from one of the worlds that chose neutrality - is the command center of this invasion's qualified Seer. Normally the Seer would have joined the all-council connection and such a specific call would not have been needed - either sent or ignored. However, no council in their right mind put the fleet's only available Seer on hold in war, and certainly not with what ever is happening now.

The messenger's pad beeps after only a breath, but it takes several moments for a stunned voice to relay, "All Dersite and Prospitan dropships have returned to the main carriers, any forces in route to ground are retreating, and the all-council connection appears to . . no longer exist." Hive worker voices are frantic now, calling out in desperation to their given comms, to the few overworked mechanics pulling out their hair in the madness. Workers leap up to rattle and slap their equipment as though to manually recalibrate it, slamming keys and reattaching cords. Some, with early epiphanies or dawning shell-shocked helplessness, are just staring at nothing as if in a trance.

"Call to the Terran Council from Skaian Controlship. Line 2," the ship's computer blandly repeats. Had it been granted a different personality, it might have snarkily observed the rapidly diminishing need for multiple connections at all.

"Put it through," a couple council members respond at once. Several seconds of quiet static - increasingly the loudest Hive sound - and then the main projector flares in life, lines of color flashing across its surface briefly before resolving into clear shapes. The connection is flooded with sound, several languages overlapping to fill the void left in the Hive.

An androgynous robed form faces away from the Terran screen, speaking in a smooth, clicking tongue. Eight other screens surround the speaker's circular platform, other members of the defense coalition. Most of them show wildly gesticulating councils with a plethora of workers rushing wildly behind, assumably in various stages of argument and withdrawal. "Sir, the Terran Defense is connected," one white-garbed attendant announces without looking up from their glowing data pad, antenna flashing toward the nearest holoscreen.

"Good, you have finally seen fit to answer," the robed figure spins gracefully around to face the Terrans, unornamented loose clothing drifting in the air. Between the flowing hood and theatrically provided Skaian robes, it's hard to tell what species the Seer belongs to, but the voice has a feminine sound. That, of course, does not mean a great deal in the grand scheme of the coalition, especially with the varying higher and lower tones of languages and the subjectivity of a gendered measurement itself, though this particular obstinate specimen is identified as female on interplanetary records. "You should be pulling out troops five minutes ago as the intelligent councils have. This little raid will be a massacre."

There is a moment of stunned silence in which the Terran council is keenly aware of the entire Hive background listening in on this momentous occasion, an all-council Seer informing the entire united leadership that their mission is in the process of being aborted. The outrage follows close behind.

"Of course people are going to die in conflicts - do you have any idea how many more will if this rebel insurrection gains traction?"

"It is clearly best to nip these pirating colonies before merchant thievery blooms into war--"

"How many moons are starving _right now_ without delivery--"

"--seeing a massacre because there so many are pulling out!--"

"Excuse me, are my words not translating correctly?" The Seer taps her tiny facial mic, sending a wave of static feedback that causes immediate silence as the council winces and several hold their aural canal shells in pain. Head tipped imperiously, she continues, "Enough with the terrible metaphors. Last I saw, the term 'massacre' was still in use on your planet."

"These attacks have been on-going for _months_ , Seer. This strike alliance was agreed to several weeks ago - why did you not come forward with this information then?" One brave councilmember rises, deferential but severe in tone.

Another man joins her, adding much more accusatorily, "And how can we be sure of your predictions? Your abilities are not that of a confirmed visionary class nor godtier, and the foresight of unascended Lights have been shown to be--"

"Subjective? Indeed." The Seer is stoic, tone cold. "Seeing as the all-council - on Terran-recommended strike, I might add - managed to kill the one and only godtier visionary, of any aspect and either class, in its service by _both_ of the only ways a conditionally immortal being can be killed, you are left with my predictions."

Skin prickles and the Hive shifts uncomfortably in the face of the Seer's powered stare. It is said that a justified Seer can judge and convict with a glance in anger, and the Heroic Justice served upon her predecessor for his hand in genocide would certainly be cause. The Seer may not have been ascended, but she clearly did not lack powerful foresight, playing the classpect tests as a true gamemaster of chance and leaving the all-council guessing. Light, Doom, Life; Mage or Seer or something else entirely unrelated, it changed every time.

Onscreen, the Seer makes a small movement and Skaian chamber _flickers_ , imperceptibly but definitely changed. "In answer to your other _query_ . ." She rakes her eyes across the assembled council. "As you all should know, the futures of any visionary are constantly subject to change, and in this situation the SEC hid their newest tech quite thoroughly. I assure you, should you run in now without better knowledge of what these colonies can deploy, this will become a complete and utter massacre, additional forces or no."

 _This_ causes another mild uproar, several council members already nodding agreement but others already mounting defense toward the Seer onscreen. The Seer makes a disgusted expression, as near as it can be said with her strange skin shadowed by the hood.

"There is no time for this. You _will_ pull out and in the following all-council meeting I will explain Scratch-English weapon advancement. Tactics will be discussed then." In the split second before screen returns to blank hull, the Seer turns her head and mutters something that could almost be, "And fate save their idiot planet if they don't," but of course that would be highly improbable, since the Seer does not speak the Terran languages and certainly would not know a contraction if it came dressed in red and licked her antenna.

Then the connection is severed, and the Terrans are left with six minutes and twelve seconds to decide whether or not they would abort their hard-won preemptive strike.


	3. How Much of It's Genetics, How Much of It Is F8--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next are excerpts that may or may not become a part of my fic [You, Me, and Your Moirail](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23233114/chapters/55626496), seeing as how it's still beginning. If they do, things will be linked accordingly.
> 
> The moirail pair seen here is just an honest self-relationship-insert that isn't important other than Karkat's association. <> to my 'rail.

Besides the strange form the building took - at least the rooms on the second half-level could be called offices and used as private escapes - it contained other, less easily explainable mysteries, such as the splatters of half a dozen troll blood colors seemingly at random throughout the first level. With nothing better to do for the time being, Karkat had begun to explore the subject of much bored debate, and between Gamzee following him around and Terezi's occasional smug interjection with her infuriatingly precise nose, he was fairly certain he had placed them all. (Dave had suggested in with typical ironic sincerity that if Karkat was so invested in this bloodstain business, he should be mapping them. Given across the twenty-one of them, there was only Terezi's chalk, three capes, blood, and a wide array of blunt and sharp weapon-objects with which to write, Karkat did not see the point and informed Dave as much in a well-evidenced lecture that may have, in fact, been what the human wanted to begin with.)

There were mild abnormalities, such as bronze on the underside of ventilation pipes and teal behind the one lower level cushioned platform that Eridan had claimed, but with troll psionics and some suspension of disbelief regarding physics these marks were mundane enough. Then there was one mark that Karkat had first noticed on the floor by what would have been a secondary entrance had it not been sealed up some time before, leaving a useless pocket of three-walled space. It was the hue that defied all blood logic - a sickly green that tickled Karkat's memory nobes. It would have been an exceptionally light, yellow olive or oddly greenish gold, and there were no other marks within body radius, certainly not of the types which could have combined to create such a color.

"Staring at more floor dribbes, Mr Cherry Pie?" Of course, it had to be the one troll that could both irritate Karkat on sniff _and_ was the resident color enthusiast. "Smells like . . fruity tang and ancient riddles, but not as disgusting as sopor slime." Karkat glared at the cane-wielding deviant, but her attention was focused somewhere to the left of the offending blood.

"It is obviously not sopor, you numbnose. There hasn't been a single recuperacoon on this entire miserable, throatstem cloggingly dry, backwater planet." But her remark had its intended effect, and now all Karkat could see was the unfortunate visual similarities between this substance and the sleeping slime. If blood mixing wasn't at work . . 

"Worried about me losing my touch? How sweet of you," Terezi's grin, as always, could peel bark from a tree and grate it into ash. She lifted one hand to make an obscene diamond with the horns of her dragon cane.

Karkat's scowl deepened. "Go bother your moirail and let the rest of us focus on our gogdamn business without your ridiculous observations."

"How uncreative of you, Mr Strawberry Faygo." Terezi sounded far too smug for her faux disappointed expression. Apparently satisfied with the havoc she had wrecked on his mental synapses, she cackled off to ruin someone else's night.

Karkat glowered at the stain a while longer, something about the blood, the color, its streaked shape on the floor that niggled at his thinkpan. It was the fleeting recognition of horns in a crowd; the brief moment of understanding after waking from a dream, having seen and forgotten a vast universe's worth of mysticism in a second. Gog, he was starting to sound like Dave with his endless rambling metaphors. (Or maybe being around Dave was making him realize their plethora of similarities. That was not as disturbing a thought as he would have liked.)

The floor smear was still taunting Karkat at breakfast slash dinner, his intense scowl and unusually terse responses enough to garner no less than four concerned glances from Dave. Even Rose sent a meaningful look towards Gamzee, but the clown was too busy licking every single crevice of his flat eating surface to notice. Karkat pretended not to see any of this, and outright ignored Dave's raised eyebrows. He skated by only because the human was just emotionally awkward enough not to pry further, and Rose was eager to join her matesprit/wife on daywatch. (Kanaya's usefulness during sunlit hours was another thing going for his empty thinkpan. The jadeblood had uncanny senses when it came to Karkat's wellbeing, even if she never waded into Gamzee's pale territory.)

It was several nights later that Karkat was wandering around the second level at the crack of dusk, fighting the affects of another rash of sleeplessness. He paused his corridor-shuffling to look through into one of the rooms on the sunset side of the building, the dying light filtering through in far more hazy waves than that of Alternia's star. Someone had claimed the couch on the far wall, covered so completely with a blanket that their horns (or lack thereof) couldn't be seen for identification. A sudden and brief flash of memory hit Karkat: the vision of a stranger's horns backlit by a setting Alternian sun, faint bicolored moonlight casting Karkat's shadow in front of him. Had the couch before him been a bit larger, if the viewing slit was smaller - had there been a door on the other wall - this might have been the main block of Karkat's old hive as he stood in the mealblock. He rubbed his eyes and squinted, trying to dispel the obstinate mirage before his oculars. And then, standing in the doorway on a planet so far from where he had hatched, Karkat remembered everything.

* * *

It was one of the times Gamzee had come to stay at Karkat's hivestem, still early in their moirallegiance when the inherent dangers of such a trip were overridden by their diamond wriggler eyes, and they had ventured out to the night market to celebrate the occasion. Neither of them had much money - Karkat because he preferred to expose himself as little as possible, and Gamzee because he preferred to hunt - but with highblood sway they'd gotten something decent at a lowercaste stall. They were on the way back to Karkat's hivestem, edging around a crowd that was blocking the narrow street almost completely. Normally Karkat would have found another way, but there were no immediate alleyways and he was on a rush of bravado with Gamzee hulking by his side (his glassy gaze having terrified lowblood stall owners for the entire trip, not that even a highblood presence could have saved them in a mob, but Karkat knew this and was exercising willful ignorance on his pessimistic thinkpan), and he really wanted to get back to his small third-story hive as soon as possible so they could eat and watch plotless romcoms and Karkat could patch that cut over Gamzee's eye and maybe they could even do some other things that Karkat was too embarrassed to admit thinking to himself.

Trolls only ever circled up for a fight, and then always without fail like the bloodthirsty voyeuristic leeches they were. Karkat didn't know or care about whatever unlucky sucker was getting jeered at this time, his single-minded focus concentrated on getting through the crowd as discreetly and snappily as possible. They were most of the way through when Gamzee suddenly stopped, halting Karkat midstride like a chained barkbeast. He glared behind, tugging on Gamzee's hand, to find the purpleblood craning through horns into the circle.

"Best friend--" Gamzee's wide-eyed sentence never finished, because stillness shuddered through the crowd and Karkat's bloodpusher shivered and, for once in its cursed existence, sent a shock of cold blood into his system. Or at least that's what it felt like. It took a moment for Karkat to figure out what was happening, like the idiot that he was, as his oculars screamed about the stock-still trolls. The crowd seemed immovable before, trying to shove through it, but that state was a thrash party compared to now - no trolls ducking or stretching to see, or shifting with impatience, not even a quivering horn as a troll turned. Then the fuzz-raising sound broke through Karkat's mental paralysis as though it was vibrating the very air in front of him.

Against his conscious will, Karkat's oculars snapped to a break in the crowd, locking onto the brewing fight settled in the pupil of rings of trolls. A troll was on the ground, one hand to his face as he lay frozen on the ground. Karkat could just make out the edges of a yellow sign under his arm. A psionic. In front of the goldblood, another troll faced off against a trio of sneering midbloods. It was from her throat that this noise resounded - the warning growl of a furious moirail. She stood at such an angle that Karkat couldn't make out her sign, but if the color of the shirt was anything to go by, this was a cerulean - an odd choice of defender for the oculars, but not a truly strange vision. The instigators didn't range higher than the lowest blue, the trio headed by a tealblood about Karkat's age standing in front of two older trolls. The apparently pale pair had a couple of sweeps on Karkat's five, but neither caste rank nor age would win a scrap of attrition and numbers.

The cerulean's fiber-splitting growl drew to a close, and Karkat felt like his thinkpan had been freed from invisible claws. The crowd resumed its myriad movements and the gap between bodies swayed closed, leaving Karkat blind to the proceedings once more. He heard taunting laughter and jeering from the far side of the cleared circle, where the trio of antagonizers had been standing. He couldn't make out words, only continuing vox, as someone with a lowblood accent had begun hawking bets and a couple with spades tattooed on their wrists were arguing nearby.

Karkat glanced Gamzee's way and realized the tightly packed wall of troll bodies had thinned considerably, either from boredom or - more likely - surreptitiously sidling away, self-preservation instincts kicking in when faced with the collateral damage a psionic and a highblood with mind control powers could inflict. The purpleblood was still staring at whatever was going down, his accursed height allowing him an decent view. Karkat jostled his arm, hoping to move them both along before things came to a head.

When Gamzee looked down at him, however, there was a flickering thing behind his oculars, an alertness that Karkat knew existed but had rarely seen in actual use. "Little brother," his moirail said quietly, leaning close to Karkat's ear so that the words were lost to the crowd, "Little brother, one of them's special. Special like you." Karkat twitched uncomfortably. Gamzee was not fool enough to casually mention his mutant heritage in public, but the possibility always made him nervous.

Then the first part of Gamzee's sentence sunk in and Karkat whipped around to meet gray irises. " _What?!_ " he hissed. Gamzee gave him a long, slow blink and returned his attention to what was hopefully not a fray-melee-bloodbath. Karkat twitched, remembering the goldblood's hand covering his face, covering a bloody nose - maybe not just out of pain? Gamzee had always had a sixth sense for these sort of things, probably sourced from his subjugglator blood. Karkat had been terrified, shaking mess the first time the young clown had bandaged an injury, when Karkat had been too weak to protest and Gamzee looked like a kicked baby barkbeast when he tried, just wanting _so hard_ to be a good moirail. But Gamzee hadn't been phased as he licked away the weeping candy red, and it turned out he'd known about Karkat's mIrAcUlOuS bLoOd for quite some time. If one of these trolls had a . . mutation (Karkat mentally stumbled over the word), whether it was wings or another too-bright blood hue, then everytroll here was liable to be culled. The imperial drones didn't discriminate between bystanders, targets, and collaborators. Even more reason to get out of here, . . but.

Karkat glanced at his moirail. Gamzee seemed interested but not specifically invested in these trolls' survival, which made sense from a quadrant point of view and slightly less from a similar-freaking-situation point of view. Karkat felt a familiar guilt building in his gut, bile rising in his throatstem at the thought of leaving now, even if what he 'knew' was just a hunch from a sopor-addled clown. They could leave now, right now, and be far away cooking grubloaf when the drones came. Maybe the sneering tealblood would get caught in the crossfire, a little bit of Alternian karma. All he had to do was get Gamzee down the nearest alley, just start moving that way, just -- damn it.

Karkat tugged on Gamzee's shoulder to bring the purpleblood down to whispering level - or Vantas-whispering level anyway. "Get a scuttlebuggy, and tell the driver to wait for four. Now, idiot - you're the highblood!" The clown looked down at himself with a clearly unsure expression, but Karkat rolled his eyes (and head) and shoved him in the right direction with a growl. He braced himself with a deep breath and started shoving through remaining trolls to the front.

Quite a bit had changed in the scant minutes - one tealblood had retreated with a bloodied face and scratched arms, and the oliveblood appeared significantly less cocky. The cerulean held a two-sided scythe speckled with bicolored blood, most likely her strife specibus, and the goldblood stood back with a sharp wand at the ready, face clean of blood but looking faint on his feet. Karkat's backbrain wondered why the goldblood didn't just use his psionics, or even fly himself and his cerulean moirail out of there, but before it could wander off in a tangent, Karkat reminded his thinkpan that not all psionics were as ridiculously overpowered as Sollux - potential mutants or not. The midblood challengers weren't about to back down and forfeit any more of their pride, and certainly no one was about break up the fight and lose their fun.

By this point, Karkat was on the inside of the circle, not yet a major part of this rash, disastrous decision. As he tried to signal the goldblood's attention, he was well aware that he was just a stupid nubby little troll in all of this, one who wanted to do something decent for once in his life and would most likely end up paying in candy red and purple blood for the audacity to momentarily defy Alternia's all-encompassing cruelty. The goldblood finally glanced over, drawn from Karkat's frenetic waving, and his oculars widened as Karkat forced himself forward. This was it, he'd made himself a target now--

Culling sirens echoed from a street or two over, sending the crowd into chaos. No doubt the imperial drones had been called by the gathering, for whatever rarely-enforced legislacerative law prevented assemblyage of armed lowbloods, or market fights that got too large, or some vendor's forbidden wares across the way. Who even knew. But it was as opportune as such a thing could be - all at once there were trolls running everywhich way, shoving and climbing over cowering vendors' stalls like a bunch of drunken ants. Karkat found himself very suddenly horns-to-face with the cerulean as she whipped around to her moirail."I-I can get you out of here!" he shouted nervously above the screaming and general mayhem all around.

The cerulean's eyes narrowed, but the goldblood touched her arm gently. Whatever passed between them made her slouch down a little and snatch Karkat's wrist before he could twist away. She let go after scarcely a second, oculars raking Karkat's face with a very perceptive gaze. Karkat tucked his head down automatically against the feeling of being scanned bones-deep, a position that would have bared his horns at her neck if they had been more than stubs. This was even worse, shi--

The teeth-rending wail sounded again from somewhere altogether too close, and Karkat jerked backward, pointing and spinning in the direction Gamzee had gone. "This way!" He took off down the quickly clearing street, searching for tall, spiraling horns. There - a hard left into the alleyway, not stopping quite fast enough to avoid ramming into Gamzee's back. It was a second before running steps came from the street - had those two nooksniffers actually not understood the meaning of _go there_ or did they think they were better off splitting elsewhere - sounding too-heavy and slowed, like a limping gait.

"Hey best bro! The driver didn't wanna take four, had something against a discount, but I convinced that mo-"

"Gamzee, shut your flap. Did you use all the 'dollars?" His moirail nodded languid agreement. Karkat scowled at his polka dots. "That was for the rest of the month! This better be worth it." There was a reason they never took a cab, no matter the distance.

Karkat glanced at down the alley long enough to be sure the driver was, in fact, still there, and spun around to see the goldblood leaning heavily on his companion, free arm wrapped around his midsection. "You brought us to a _clown_?" the cerulean snarled, eyes alight. Her voice was rough, though that may have been an angry thing. Karkat couldn't believe this; of all the terrible times to have an argument, especially about castest absurdity, this had to be the worst.

"He isn't a subjugglator, alright - he's on sopor! Just get your asses in the cab before we all become bloody ash stains!" She hesitated, but they all knew she didn't have a choice. Her moirail was looking worse, and even if she left him behind it was unlikely either of them were going to outrun a flock of drones.

Fitting in the scuttlebuggy was horrible, and it only got worse. All four of them - Karkat, Gamzee, and their two tight-lipped stowaways - had piled into the back compartment like a shameless poly-palemance. The driver wore a disgusted expression and appeared to be overjoyed with her separated steering cabin. Gamzee had his head tucked so far down it was practically swallowed by his shoulders, and his horns still collided with the roof everytime the buggy hit a pothole, making Karkat wince in sympathy from his awkward crouch over the clown's legs. The small space might have been large enough for him to at least put a stabilizing hand on the seat, except the goldblood's feet were blocking Karkat's vision, and he wasn't risking placing a paw on the shadow-calling cerulean or a weapon instead. As for the other two, the blue blood had swung the other troll over her lap, thorax towards the door, and was keeping his head from connecting with the buggy's side through some mix of luck and highblood strength. Whatever the teals had done, it had accomplished a great deal of damage with minimal bleeding.

Karkat was debating the merits of flatout collapsing on Gamzee's lap, damn the consequences in a situation didn't have a inch of dignity left to lose, literally, when the scuttlebuggy driver pulled over and ordered them out to Karkat's immediate relief. It would be a short walk to the hivestem - Gamzee at least had enough pancells left to not drop a bunch of suspicious wrigglers directly on their hivestep - but Karkat couldn't care less. He scrambled away from the too-hot-too-cold riders and caught glimpses of the cerulean thoroughly checking the compartment - for bloodstains? - as he with wrestled Gamzee's horns, to the tune of several mournful honks. The doors were scarcely shut before the scuttlebuggy shrieked off down the street, about to get a hosing-down with fire if the driver's expression was anything to go by.

The cerulean glared pointedly at Karkat, goldblood still swung heavy across her arms. With his face still hot enough to burn, and bright enough to shine through his protective rusty-gray grubslime to boot, Karkat motioned in the right direction and led them all like a line of quackbeasts. The highblood's arms were shaking subtly as the four of them squeezed into the hivestem's lift, but she refused to let Gamzee offer so much as a supporting hand. The ride up three floors had to be the longest in all of Karkat's five sweeps, a mess of nervous energy as the lift occupants eyed each other and the sky, watching for drones and trying to touch as little as possible.

As Karkat unlocked the hive door the cerulean was twitching constantly, had to be holding up the other troll through inertia and stubbornness alone. She shoved through the entryway and had the goldblood on the floor, leaning against Karkat's couch by the time he and Gamzee entered.

"How about we cook up that meat, besfriend? You can join too, sister," Gamzee offered with charming alacrity, disappearing into the mealblock.

Karkat finished locking the door, but left the key in for appearances' sake. This girl already looked paranoid enough, and with good cause. "The ablution block is in the back, if you want to . . take care of yourselves." He managed to say it with only a slight pause, shoving thoughts of the desecration of the chamber by a pair of strange trolls out of his pan. The trolls - _guests_ now, for all intents and purposes, what a panic-inducing thought - exchanged a meaningful look, and wobbled off without so much as a thanks. Not that Karkat needed such a thing from random trolls, but he had risked his hide _and_ brought their ungrateful maybe-mutant skins into his hive, so a little appreciation would have been nice.

It was a very long time before either of them returned. Gamzee and Karkat kept themselves busy in the mealblock, and then figuring out the dining situation with one stool and four trolls, working the couch over to the mealblock counter. The moons were nearly set when their hiveguests emerged from the ablution block, headfuzz damp and clothes clean if a bit misty. Nobody mentioned the fresh scent of pale pheromones.

Eating was an awkward, nearly silent affair for half the counter. Karkat clearly felt the cerulean and psionic having a conversation, passing plates without glancing at each other and making movements like conversant trolls would - slight head tips, eye movements, claw flexing. It was eerie for everyone else - or well, at least Karkat. Gamzee was intently stuffing his face. Even Vriska, with her powerful mind control that could cross cities, couldn't communicate telepathically to Karkat's knowledge. It made him wonder if they talked in words, or pictures, or emotions - what about bronzeblood abilities? Was that why ceruleans could only control trolls, they needed words? Could a bronzeblood and a cerulean learn each others' abilities? This was ridiculous, he didn't actually care. Someone had probably figured it all out a hundred sweeps ago. Maybe this was a distraction tactic from -- _shut up!_

"We'll be gone in the evening," the goldblood announced suddenly. His voice was soft but firm, reminding Karkat that he hadn't heard either of them speak more than once. "Thank you for tonight; we won't meet again."

"Aw it's alright bro, we know you got some strange new miracles in your blood." Karkat kicked his moirail swiftly out of sight, but the other trolls had already stiffened. Of all the moons-licking things to say to strange, dangerous (which went without saying where Alternia was concerned) trolls in your flipping moirail's hive. And _new_ miracles - that would confirm anyone's suspicions!

"You won't say anything," the cerulean's voice was calm, but her eyes were hard. "Remember, we know about your secret as well." The rust-gray facial oil, Karkat realized. It was in the ablution block - shit, they'd seen it, hadn't they?

"Name anonymity won't save you from the drones," the goldblood added. Or, maybe not gold. There were light cuts on his hands and a darkening mark on his face, bruise forming in a color too green to be gold and too yellow to be olive. "Stay quiet, and all of us get to live a while longer."

It wasn't the best pact, but there really was never a good trust on this miserable planet. Karkat nodded slowly, and elbowed Gamzee until he did the same. The silence was markedly more tense after that. The visitors did help clean up at least, washing eatingware in the mealblock as Gamzee shoved the couch to its original place and Karkat went in search of an extra blanket, no longer concerned about strangers piling in his hive.

"Gamzee," Karkat asked softly that morning, lying next to his moirail in sopor. He hadn't heard the visitors moving in quite sometime, but even with their being on the couch a locked door away, he despised the feeling of being watched in his own hive. "Gamzee, what will we do when we're eight sweeps old? There's no way to hide on Alternia as adults, and they'll cull both of us if you try to protect me." The question was never that far from his mind, but seeing a seven-sweep old cullbait (limeblood, something deep in his pan whispered) troll had made him realize the absolute inanity at hoping to escape this hellhole of a rock. Something about the way the limeblood had said _a while longer_ like the unsettled acceptance of a bitter fact.

Gamzee turned over suddenly, gripping Karkat's face hard with both hands, but gently enough not to hurt. "They will NOT take you AWAY FROM ME, little brother," he hissed, glowing oculars fierce. "I have put MY FAITH in aberrations of YOUR KIND, and I will NOT FAIL." Somehow his clown voice soothed Karkat, and for once he drifted off before the sun had risen.

That evening, Karkat rose before the glaring Alternian sun had obliged to tuck its death rays around to the other side of the planet. He washed off quietly in the ablution trap, succeeded in not waking his moirail, and staggered into the mealblock in search of any enlivening substance. In the waking blur, he'd half forgotten about yesternight's guests and half expected them to be out the door. Instead, he turned toward the couch to see a pair of unfamiliar horns silhouetted against the setting sun, a second blanket-draped figure sprawled over the furniture across tucked legs.

The startled cerulean, surely not more than half awake herself, growled low and deep. The skin-raising, hair-shivering sound was the same moirail noise from the market encounter, except this time Karkat was alone in his hive as the sound pulsed through his pan, instead of separated from it and surrounded by a few dozen other trolls. Maybe it was the dying light, but her seven-sweep gray eyes almost seemed speckled with cerulean.

* * *

The memory of the sound shocked Karkat back to reality - or at least this time period of it. The light was nearly gone, returning blessed darkness to the world, and the evening watch down off the roof. He was still in the hallway of a strange building on a nowhere planet.  
Karkat: Realize you're standing in the doorway of someone's sleeping chamber like a creeping perv, Mr Nubby Horns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Terezi is like enjoying the aftermath of an atomic bomb drop. She's a blast to write, that's really all there is to say.
> 
> Also, you should check out [Migration](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18451313/chapters/43712264) by [parsnipit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/parsnipit/pseuds/parsnipit) for some protective Gamkar. Not all iterations of their moirallegiance are a total loss.


End file.
